2008-03-22

Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005.

The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed.

“When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired … the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction,” the White House said in a sworn declaration filed with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola.

It has been the goal of a White House Office of Administration “refresh program” to replace one-third of its workstations every year in the Executive Office of the President, according to the declaration.

Some, but not necessarily all, of the data on old hard drives is moved to new computer hard drives, the declaration added.

comment by dennis from link

Dennis - SGMM Says:

Not to worry; the Republicans will discover the danger of the Unitary Executive next January. They will also rediscover the other two branches of government and the importance of Congressional oversight. Any invocation of executive privilege or use of signing statements will be Viewed With Alarm. Presidential appointees will require super majorities to be confirmed.
It will take less than eight months for the Democrats to Let Victory in Iraq Slip From Our Grasp.
More financial institutions will require bailouts – not because of over leveraging or mismanagement but because they are demoralized at the specter of a Democratic administration. The punditocracy will speak with one voice in demanding that taxes be cut further and regulations loosened to end the Pelosi Recession.
This is too easy.